The top reported proficiency rate is 91% in Math. The lowest is 85% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Alachua Learning Academy Middle
Alachua Learning Academy Middle is a small charter school serving sixth through eighth grade in the city of Alachua, on the northern edge of Alachua County. Its enrollment is genuinely small, with roughly equal cohorts across all three middle grades, and the school draws a mostly white student body alongside Hispanic students, a smaller share of multiracial students, and very few Black or Asian students. About two in five students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a moderate share for a middle school in this region. Data on students with IEPs and English learners was not available in the records we had.
The academic picture is one of the clearer strengths this school can point to. On Florida's FAST assessments, sixth and seventh graders showed very high proficiency in both math and English language arts, and eighth-grade ELA results were similarly strong. Eighth-grade math results were suppressed by the state, likely because the tested group was small enough to trigger privacy protections, so that one cell cannot be read either way. The eighth-grade science assessment showed a high proficiency rate as well. Placed against the two districts that make up the Alachua County comparison set, this school's overall proficiency index sits in the top quartile, well above both the county median and the county maximum among those districts. For a family focused on academic attainment in middle school, that is a meaningful position.
Because this is a middle school only, there is no graduation rate to report. Chronic absenteeism data was not available.
The school sits along State Road 235 in a part of Alachua that is more highway corridor than neighborhood, away from the walkable historic downtown that defines the city's older commercial core. The city itself is a small North Central Florida city that has kept a Southern, small-town character while hosting one of Florida's larger biotech employment clusters in the Progress District near I-75, anchored by companies like Thermo Fisher Scientific and several University of Florida spinouts. A large mixed-use development called The Convergence broke ground nearby in 2022 and is planned to bring substantial new residential and research space adjacent to that corridor, so the immediate area around the school may see meaningful change over the next several years.
On housing, the local market sits modestly below the Florida statewide benchmark and very close to the national benchmark in terms of typical home values, with values down slightly year over year. Rent in the zip code runs at a level where rent-to-income ratios land in a broadly manageable range nationally, though families should weigh that against their own circumstances given current mortgage rates.
At the district level, Alachua County Public Schools voters renewed a one-mill property tax in late 2024, continuing funding through 2029 for art, music, drama, band, counselors, nurses, librarians, career-technical programs, and academic magnets across the county. Because this was a renewal rather than a new tax, it did not add to homeowners' bills, but its passage is what keeps those positions funded. The district has also been piloting year-round calendars at select elementary schools; one of those pilots was discontinued in spring 2025 after enrollment dropped and parent satisfaction was low, so that program remains in flux for families considering elementary options in the county.
Alachua Learning Academy Middle operates outside the standard district assignment system, so enrollment is by application rather than address. Program offerings data was not available in what we reviewed; a parent interested in electives, clubs, or specific coursework would want to contact the school directly. The civil rights data section was empty in our records, so discipline patterns and other civil rights metrics cannot be characterized here.
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